What America Lost by Delaying the Vaccine Rollout | Hacker News Reader

What America Lost by Delaying the Vaccine Rollout

theatlantic.com

10 pointsNavinF10 comments

No because then it would have been the Trump Vaccine and media would have condemned it as a dangerous, untested experiment on the American people. Any side effects would be covered 24/7. Fact checkers would point out that it doesn't convey immunity and therefore should not really qualify as a "vaccine," etc.

> No because then it would have been the Trump Vaccine

Nah, that prediction originates from opportunistic flip-floppers projecting their own behavior onto everybody else.

Both sides are not the same. (Nor symmetric mirror images.)

The whole debacle involved a hilarious amount of flip floping and gas lighting that all the counter orders were not actually counter orders.

'Both sides' only makes sense in an US context if you pretend there are two sides.

It was a 'gatekeeper' issue. Where hysterical and panicing gatekeepers tried to keep people in line.

Then in the confusion predictably evolved into a 'two sides'® as done in the US of A issue, like say abortion, 'vaxxers' etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0

Pales in comparison to the impact of ‘leadership’ saying masks are ineffective.

I remember we knew by June 2020 that it was aerosolized transmission which means the safest locations are outdoors in sunshine and which also means you could open schools with an air filter next to every desk.

The complete lack of stem education amongst decision makers really screwed us over.

I don't blame general leadership as much as I do the CDC. They took so long to say 'wear masks, they (may) help' rather than 'we have no (hard) evidence that masks reduce transmission'. Masks were all we had in the beginning besides curbing activities, which was a no-brainer when little was known about the virus.

It is a good article in the end but the start is another classic bit of sanewashing of Trump.

Yes, he was clearly making a well thought out case that the FDA was too beaurocratic and there are ethical ways to roll out medical interventions faster by letting people expose themselves to risks if they are facing mortal danger.

Or he was just spouting horseshit like he did throughout the pandemic and in every other case where lives were at stake.

A timeline of quotes: https://doggett.house.gov/media/blog-post/timeline-trumps-co...

> They are getting tired of the pandemic, aren't they? You turn on CNN, that's all they cover. 'Covid, Covid, Pandemic, Covid, Covid.' You know why? They're trying to talk everybody out of voting. People aren't buying it, CNN, you dumb bastards."

It could have been differently in which case people would have complained why we hadn’t been more cautious. This might be a shallow dismissal but hindsight is 20/20.

I don't know.

For some, hindsight is saying that it was a big deal. You'd expect that group to be resolute that early access was needed. It could easily have been offered to the elderly. That's pretty clear cut. For sure, if it had gone bad, there would have been naysayers ... but that could have been mitigated by allowing individuals to choose for themselves, and restricting early access to the elderly.

The other group who didn't think it so pressing could easily have been satisfied to wait.

So although hindsight is 20/20, it's pretty clear that Public Health acted against both groups' interests here.

No, we should always criticize decisions that lead to more people dying. People who claim "we should have been more cautious" should also be criticized. Both for being spineless, and for leading to more deaths over time.

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